Friday, March 2, 2012

The Springing of Spring

Yes, I know the "official" start of spring isn't for a few more weeks, but spring weather has definitely arrived. And by that I mean, the insane meteorological roller coaster has launched at full speed.

That wonderful time of year when I'm freezing as I walk from the parking lot to the school in the morning ... and the air conditioner kicks on my classroom in the afternoon. (It's still only low-to-mid 50s outside ... but my room appears to share some characteristics with a solar-powered brick oven.) This is great, because during the same class, Student X will think it's a refrigerator while Student Y thinks it's a sauna.

The commute home nearly every day this week has made me think, "There's no way Chicago has more wind than this. If they're the Windy City, we're the Windier STATE."

And you know what? This state is full of something else: SAND. Wind plus sand. Do the math.

Spring also brings about that characteristic rise in the hormone levels of my teenage students. Oh, boy.

Speaking of which (yeah, that's a smooth segue), there's one good thing about spring. Several of my writer-friends have put together an anthology of short stories titled Spring Fevers. (I don't have a story in there, but I did the formatting—yay, tech-head!) It's available for free on Smashwords in a variety of electronic formats, or for 99 cents at Amazon. (Any proceeds from sales on Amazon will go to charity.) The stories are all about relationships in some form, with wide variety in topic and tone. If you like short stories, take a look and see what you think.

(My birthday's in spring. I guess that's another good thing. But not until next month.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, all that dust and sand in the air means I need to do some sneezing.